


ghosts

by tomorrowsrain



Series: OT3 [2]
Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Fluff, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Recovery, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-28 01:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10820970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomorrowsrain/pseuds/tomorrowsrain
Summary: Sometimes the only way to get rid of the things that haunt you is to face them. Fortunately, Ruben no longer has to do that alone.(sequel of sorts to breathe, but can be read alone.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisstableground](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/gifts).



> So these three have officially taken over my brain. I would be mad about it, but I love them too much. 
> 
> I also can't write anything short to save my life so this should be around four chapters - the rest will be posted over the course of the next week. 
> 
> As mentioned in the summary, this is officially a sequel to breathe, but can be read on its own. 
> 
> For thisstableground. Happy Birthday! :)

So, life is … pretty good, actually. Better than pretty good. _Great._ He’s actually fucking _happy_ (and he doesn’t even have to stop in the middle of the day to pinch himself anymore). His bad days only come around once or twice a month instead of several times a week and the nightmares are even rarer. It’s been _three months_ since he last woke up screaming and he honestly thinks that warrants a celebration of some sort.

(Knowing the idiots he’s dating, one is probably in the works. They’ve been acting shifty for several days now, which usually means they’re thinking about surprising him and are worried it might scare him. He appreciates the caution, though. While he’s not a delicate flower, the birthday party they tried to throw a few months ago was … not good. People yelling in a dark room … yeah. He was apologizing to Benny for several days after instinctively throwing a book at his head, and Usnavi and Vanessa were apologizing to _him_ even longer.

Surprises require some careful treading, but they’ve filed it away and, like everything else, they’re making it work.)

Speaking of celebrations, they’re only _one month_ from their two-year anniversary and that’s just. Fucking mind blowing. Ruben has been quietly eyeing restaurants for two weeks now, trying to find a balance between upscale and unintimidating. While he’s never made a _ton_ of money (nowhere near the same realm as Jason), he’s learned that his version of “not a lot of money” is still different from Vanessa and Usnavi’s.

It first came up when they started looking for an apartment. Ruben brought a few suggestions to the table and watched Vanessa’s eyebrows make a leap for her hairline. It was Usnavi who quietly said, “we can’t afford this.”

“Not in, like, a million years,” Vanessa added.

(They fought about it. Well, he and Vanessa did while Usnavi tried his best to mediate. Ruben wanted to pay a larger share of the rent if it meant them getting somewhere that didn’t leak and creak and wasn’t full of broken appliances. Vanessa didn’t want any handouts. Usnavi argued that this needed to be _equal,_ in everything, but they should discuss it further. Then Vanessa demanded to know whose side he was on, which led to the fiercest glare Ruben had ever seen on Usnavi’s face and Usnavi actually _snapping,_ “that’s _not_ how this works,” and they all ended up avoiding each other for three days. It was Awful.

Finally, Ruben gritted his teeth, dragged them both out to lunch, and, tearing down as many of his walls as he could, said, “you saved my life. Do you know that? You _still_ save my life. Every fucking day. Honestly, if I never met you I might have…” He cut himself off there, because some things they just don’t, _can’t,_ talk about and how _close_ he came to the edge after first moving to New York is one of them. Still, it was enough to make them both look stricken and _shit,_ that wasn’t his intention.

He reached out and took both of their hands and added, “what I mean is, _please,_ let me do this. It’s not a handout or a charity case or anything. I’m good at science and I made a lot of money off it and it’s sat in a stupid savings account for _years_ because I had no one in my life to spend it on, really, but now I _do._ So, please let me, okay? This is me saying I love you and I want to give you this. That’s _it.”)_

It hadn’t solved anything right away, but they reached a compromise and the result is a lovely two-bedroom apartment three blocks from the bodega with lots of windows and _new_ appliances and space for all of their things.

(“Okay, it’s pretty amazing,” Vanessa admitted when she first saw it and squeezed his hand hard in the way she always did when she was battling her emotions.

“Are you kidding?” Usnavi chimed in from the bedroom. “Look at this _bed._ None of us are gonna die falling out of it. This is _awesome.”)_

They set up a kind of office space in the second bedroom where Usnavi could go over finances for the bodega and Ruben could do his grading, complete with a futon for Sonny to crash on when he was home from college (though he often preferred to stay with other friends, including the group of students from Yeshiva who are now subletting the apartment above the bodega from Usnavi).

In the year since then, it’s slowly filled with books and plants and bright paintings, and Ruben loves it there so much. It’s _home._ More than Philadelphia ever was.

(He gave his mother and sisters a skype tour after they’d finished unpacking and setting up the furniture and he couldn’t stop smiling the entire time.

“Oh, look at you, mijo, _”_ his mother had said at the end of it, eyes bright with happy tears. “Look at you.”)

Outside of the barrio, his classes are going well. He’s actually _popular_ with a lot of his students, which is crazy considering he still isn’t the best at social interaction with strangers (but he _is_ getting better, damn it). And he’s started teaching ESL on Fridays. It has its own challenges, but he actually feels like he’s doing something good, something worthwhile, and that’s what matters.

He misses the lab, sometimes, and the thrill of discovery—science that stretched the limits of his understanding, pushed him to expand, to think outside the box (or destroy the box completely)—but it’s a dull ache. Barely noticeable.

Science isn’t the only fulfilling thing in his life, anymore, and that’s. Yeah. He’ll take Usnavi and Vanessa over a lab any day, forever.

 

_ _

 

Wednesdays are Lunch-With-Vanessa days (just like Mondays are Breakfast-With-Usnavi days). He has no classes in the afternoon and it’s become another of their traditions. Same café, usually the same order, but they’re all creatures of routine, to a certain extent.

(Or maybe it’s more that they prefer the familiar and the safety it provides.)

He dismisses his class, watching them eagerly gather up their books with an amused smile.

“Oy, Hector,” he calls to one boy on the front row, “no olvides tu clase de tutoría mañana. _”_

That’s another thing he’s started doing: tutoring sessions on Thursday evenings.

Hector gives a distracted wave and bolts for the door, leaving Ruben to roll his eyes towards the ceiling. He really should remind the kid that _he_ was the one who signed up for the sessions in the first place, but. Youth. They remain a mystery.

Once he’s erased the chalkboard (managing, as always, to get dust all over his jacket in the process), he texts Vanessa to let her know he’s on his way and heads for the exit. He’s stopped in the hallway by Thelma and pauses to assure her that, yes, they’re still on for lunch tomorrow.

He loves Thelma, truly. She is tiny and soft-spoken and most days composed entirely of sunshine and optimism. But she is approaching sixty with no children of her own and has decided to mother _him_ instead, as though he were a small bird she found in her garden with broken wings. And he isn’t. He’s learned that about himself through this whole ordeal, at least. He’s made of _steel,_ not glass, but he can’t seem to get Thelma to see that.

(“It’s your face,” Vanessa told him when he explained it to her. “Usnavi is the same way. You’re both so damn _expressive,_ especially when you’re sad. It’s terrible.”

And considering Ruben always feels a piece of his heart breaking when Usnavi is upset in any way, he kind of gets it. He just never knew he evoked the same reaction in people.) 

By the time he manages to extract himself from Thelma, he’s running nearly fifteen minutes late and he emerges onto the street at a brisk walk, hoping he hasn’t made Vanessa worry.

(She worries far more easily than she lets on.)

The fall sun is bright, momentarily blinding him, and when he adjusts to the change in light, he stops dead.

There is a ghost standing on the sidewalk.

He blinks. Squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again. Nope, still there. Which can’t be possible. He hasn’t had a waking, active flashback in _months_ and nothing this vivid. Besides, those are more all-encompassing. When he suffers one, he can usually feel the heat in the air and Ian’s hands on his skin, smell the metallic tang of his own blood dripping to the floor, taste the salt of his tears, hear Ian’s voice whispering in his ear.

 _Focus,_ he tells himself sternly. _Look at the facts._

If this isn’t a flashback or hallucination, then the only viable option left is that this is real.

Oh God.

“Ruben,” the ghost says and takes a step forward.

Oh God, oh God, oh God…

He tenses and waits for the panic to hit him, but. Nothing.

(Maybe because this has always felt like an inevitability, deep down. He’s never been able to run far enough before.)

“Jason,” he says, because Ian wouldn’t bother with pleasantries or look this nervous at seeing him (and thank God for small miracles, he guesses).

(Really fucking small miracles.)

“Wow, it really is you,” Jason says, though he doesn’t sound truly surprised. Which means he’s actually been _looking,_ which means…

_Don’t think about that yet. Don’t._

“How did you find me?” Ruben asks. Seriously. It’s been almost _three goddamn years._

Jason grimaces, running a hand through his hair. He looks almost exactly the same, right down to the circles under his eyes. Ruben can’t imagine how he looks to Jason, but he doubts it’s the same.  

(He wears soft sweaters instead of button ups, these days, and he still can’t really bring himself to put on a tie again. Not when all he can think about is how easy it would be for someone to choke him with it. He likes layers, when he’s outside of the barrio, but he can do short sleeves in the summer, on good days. He’d like to think, too, that he doesn’t look as haunted as he used to. As broken down and emptied out and tired.)

“It wasn’t easy,” Jason says and Ruben kind of wants to laugh. Or scream.

“ _How?_ ” he presses, approaching rare, uncharacteristic fury.

“You spoke to Connie,” Jason blurts. “You told her that you were moving to New York to teach.”

“Oh my God,” Ruben says, putting a hand over his mouth in disbelief.

Seriously? _Seriously? One_ conversation with an old co-worker was enough of a trail?

(Then again, Ian tracked him to Jamaica through his fucking laptop screensaver, so really, he shouldn’t be surprised, should he?)

“Of course, I didn’t know _where_ you would be teaching, but you’re too qualified for high school,” Jason continues, oblivious as always to Ruben’s mounting distress. “So, I googled your name in relation to colleges and got a hit.” He gestures to the building behind them. “Ruben Marcado, Adjunct Professor in the Natural Sciences Department of Hostos Community College, the Bronx. There wasn’t a photo, but. I figured it was a good chance.”

Suddenly, Ruben is standing in an empty room at IMH, watching Jason hold up a business card with the stunned realization that Jason actually _went through his desk._ Only this is a hundred, a _thousand_ times worse than that.

There is so much he wants to say (predominantly _fuck you_ over and over until Jason _finally_ gets the message), but all that comes out of his mouth is, “how long have you known where I was?”

Jason shrugs. Actually looks _guilty._ “About a year.”

A year. A fucking _year._

He’s still waiting for the panic, but all he feels is weariness down to his bones.

“Right,” he says, devoid of emotion.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Vanessa. He’s almost half an hour late now.

“I have to go,” he tells Jason and turns to walk in the opposite direction.

Maybe, by some miracle, Jason will take a hint and leave him the _hell_ alone.

“Ruben, wait.”

Right. Who is he kidding?

He still stops (and _hates_ himself for it). Closes his eyes and breathes, mentally counting to ten in Spanish. “What?”

He already knows what Jason is going to say. As certain as the sky is blue. “I need your help.”

Yep.

A bark of laughter punches free of his mouth, startling him, and in its wake comes roaring fury.

“Fuck you, Jason,” he says in a voice he doesn’t entirely recognize as his own. “Leave me alone.”

Jason’s hand closes around his arm. “Ruben, please, just hear me out.”

Ruben wrenches his arm free and puts a few stumbling steps between them, heart pounding and skin crawling even beneath the protective layers of his clothes. “Don’t _touch_ me.”

Jason extends his palms in a placating gesture, like Ruben is some kind of cornered animal. “I’m sorry. But, Ruben, I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Did you care?” Ruben asks, curling nervous fingers around the strap of his messenger bag—anger slipping rapidly away (he’s never been good at maintaining it, as much as he sometimes wants to be). “When I went missing?”

Jason’s face twists. “I ... Ian told me you were dead and I—”

He’s going to lie, Ruben realizes, disappointment sinking into his stomach like a stone. He’s tempted to let Jason flounder in it, try to conjure sympathy he’s never felt, but he doesn’t have the patience.

“Never mind,” he interrupts. “Of course you didn’t. You had the notebook. You got everything you needed from me, right? So who cares what might have happened.”

“I wanted to look,” Jason insists. “After the surgery was over I was going to go down there and … but then Connie said you were back. That you’d stopped by the hospital, but you didn’t look good and you weren’t interested in visitors. I thought it would be best to keep my distance…”

“Until you needed my ‘consistently amazing brain,’ right?” Ruben cuts in again.

He feels sick and his phone is still buzzing. Any longer and Vanessa is going to call out a search party. He clings to the thought of her. If Jason decides to do something drastic, or suddenly morphs into Ian, there are people who have the whole story now. Who will look for him and know where to start.

“I’m sorry,” Jason says again. “Truly, I am, Ruben. For everything. But like said, I don’t know where else to go. I’ve tried everything, believe me.”

“Have you ever considered the fact that there might not be a cure for this?” Ruben snaps.

The expression on Jason’s face says that no, he hasn’t. For a moment, it’s almost flattering, realizing that Jason truly believes Ruben is magic in some way—that he can miracle a cure out of nothing, that he can do what no one else can. But it only lasts a moment. He knows the cost of helping Jason now and he’s never going to pay it again.

God, he’s so tired.

“I gave you _everything_ I had, Jason,” he says. “ _Everything._ There’s nothing left. Check yourself into a psychiatric facility or something. Maybe they can help you. I can’t.”

He turns to go again. If Jason follows him, he’s going to call the fucking police and have him arrested for stalking.

”Ruben, _please.”_ Jason’s voice cracks—the way it had when Jason explained that the hospital was all he had, and later when Jason told him he had a son. Ruben shouldn’t fall for it. He _shouldn’t._

But he stops again.

“I know,” Jason says. “I know he hurt you and I know I shouldn’t have come here, but I’m desperate. You’re my only chance, so please. Please, just let me buy you a coffee and pick your brain for a few hours and if we can’t come up with a solution, I’ll leave. Forever. You’ll never hear from me again.”

 _Walk away,_ a voice in his head that sounds like Vanessa insists. _Walk away **right now,** Ruben **.**_

He turns around to face Jason.

“ _Please,”_ Jason says again. “Just a few hours, Ruben.”

 _He looks pathetic_ , is all Ruben can think. He looks so pathetic—thin and haggard and worn down, the way Ruben felt when he first got back from Jamaica, flinching every time he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

“Fine,” he hears himself say before his brain can fully process it. “There’s a café about four blocks from here. You’re buying.”

Jason’s face collapses into relief, shoulders slumping. “Of course, _thank you.”_

Ruben fishes his phone out of his pocket. “I just have to text my girl—” He cuts himself off abruptly, realizing that he doesn’t want Jason to know about Vanessa or Usnavi. No way. “The person I was meeting for lunch.”

Jason nods and waits as Ruben fires off a quick message to Vanessa, fingers tapping restlessly against his leg.

_Sorry, sorry. Ran into an old colleague from IMH and going to grab coffee. I’ll make it up to you, I swear. Just name your price. ;)_

_P.S. should be back for dinner. xoxoxo_

There. Hopefully that won’t raise too many suspicions.

“Okay,” he says, putting the phone away. He takes a deep breath, reaching for courage he doesn’t entirely feel. “Before we go, I also just want to make one thing clear: if this brainstorming session or whatever you want to call it doesn’t miraculously produce a cure, you are going to leave like you promised. If I ever see or hear from you again after this afternoon, I’m going to call the police and tell them Jason Cole kidnapped me from a plane in Jamaica and then tortured me for hours before leaving me for dead with no money, passport, or way home. Do you understand?”

It might not be entirely fair, pinning Ian’s crimes on Jason, but he doesn’t care anymore. What Ian did to him wasn’t fair, either, and he’s never demanded any kind of compensation for it.

Jason’s eyes widen, but he nods. “Yes.”

“Good,” Ruben says and turns in the opposite direction of where he had been heading before. “Follow me, then.”

Jason falls into step next to him and for a second, he’s back in Philadelphia again, walking Jason to a cab after Ian almost caved his head in with a baseball bat.

He shakes off the impending flashback, reaching a hand into his pocket to curl his hand around his phone like a lifeline.

 

_ _

 

This bus is moving too damn slow and Usnavi isn’t picking up his phone. Vanessa redials for the fourth time, feeling a scream of frustration building in the back of her throat. Her sneaker is beating a frantic rhythm against the floor and when the guy slouched in the seat next to her frowns, she glares at him—a blatant “fuck off.”

“Yo,” Usnavi says, dragging her attention back to her phone. “What’s up? Done with lunch already?”

“You need to come down here,” Vanessa says without wasting time on a greeting.

“What? Vanessa, I don’t have anyone to cover and I can’t just close the store for—”

“It’s Ruben,” Vanessa snaps and hears Usnavi suck in a sharp breath.

“I’m closing the store.” Something clatters. “Shit. Fuck. Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Vanessa admits, the text message still playing on a loop in her head.

_Ran into old colleague from IMH…_

And a fucking _winky face_. Ruben only uses emoticons when he’s trying keep them from worrying about him. They’re like a digital “nothing to see here,” and she hates it.

“You _don’t know?”_ Usnavi’s voice climbs nearly an octave and there is more clattering. The rattle of the grate going down over the front of the bodega. “What do you mean _you don’t know?”_

“I mean I don’t know!” The _idiota_ next to her is frowning again, looking like he’s about to say something. Several other people are turning to stare, too. She blows out a long breath and lowers her voice. “He sent me a weird text message. Said he ran into an ‘old colleague from IMH.’”

 _“_ ¿Qué? Eso es malo, ¿verdad? Eso es realmente malo, oh Dios mío—”

“Usnavi,” Vanessa says, cutting off the torrent of frantic Spanish still spilling into her ear—occasionally drowned out by traffic. “Calm down, por favor.”

“Lo siento, _”_ Usnavi says. His voice is still tight with the same panic Vanessa can feel just beneath her skin like crackling fire.

(This morning Ruben was running late to class, darting around the apartment like a small hurricane, but he still stopped by the couch to kiss her on the cheek.  She laughed and reached up to straighten the collar of his sweater, smooth down his rumpled hair.

“Hey, you’re definitely pulling off this artfully disheveled look, but I don’t think it’s the goal, right?”

He grimaced and ran his own hand through hair. “No. I need to look like I have at least most of my life together in front of the students. They’re like wolves. They can smell fear.”

He stopped by the kitchen table to cram a bunch of graded papers into his bag. “You should still sign up for some classes, you know.”

It was the continuation of a long discussion they’ve been having—his half of their well-worn exchange.

She dutifully fired back hers. “I’ll think about it.”

Ruben shook his head, but darted over to kiss her again, this time on the mouth. Then he was gone, throwing a bright “I’ll see you for lunch!” over his shoulder.)

She doesn’t want to lose him. She _refuses_ to lose him.

“Did he say where he was going?” Usnavi says.

“No, but probably the café near the college.”

“The one he always takes breaks at?”

“Yeah. And complains that they can’t brew coffee right and he’s going to adjust the temperature on the machines himself one of these days.”

“Or that I should just come down there with coffee—thirty minutes on the bus isn’t that bad, right?” Usnavi says, affectionate and sad all at once, and Vanessa curls her free hand around the seat in front of her, digging her nails deep into the cheap fabric.

They linger in the silence together, collecting themselves.

“Usnavi,” Vanessa says after a moment, “tell me he’s going to be okay.”

“He’s going to be okay,” Usnavi replies immediately, though it sounds like he’s trying to convince them both. “For all we know, it’s his assistant. C something?”

“Connie.”

“Yeah, her. Or someone else from his department. It might not be You-Know-Who.”

“Seriously? Did you just—”

“Hey, cállate, I’m trying to be comforting over here.”

She shakes her head, smiling slightly in spite of the fear still rocking around inside of her. “Just get down here, okay?”

“I’m at the bus stop now. And look, if it _is_ him, I’m pretty sure I’ve got shovels somewhere at the bodega and Inwood Park is a great place to hide a body.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me. May not wait for you, though, so if I get arrested for assault don’t panic.”

“I’m already panicking,” Usnavi mutters. Then, louder, “don’t hold back. But be careful, too?”

She doesn’t want to promise him anything—if Ruben is in danger, she’s going in ready for a fight—but she also doesn’t want him to suffer a torturous bus ride playing worst case scenarios through his head.

Like she’s been doing.

“Okay. I will.”

“Gracias, _”_ Usnavi says and hangs up.

She still has over fifteen minutes left until her stop, goddamnit. She hates the feeling in her chest, like her ribcage is slowly shrinking, pushing down on her heart and lungs. She experienced the same thing when Usnavi announced he was leaving the damn _country_ and she realized she was too fucking _late._

It seems to come often, where Ruben is concerned, but she’s never minded—he’s worth all the premature gray hair she’s probably going to end up with.  Right now she kind of wants to strangle him, though, for trying to keep this from her.

After she makes sure he’s safe.

God, this bus is so _slow._

_ _

 

She likens him to the plants they have scattered around their new apartment, sometimes—slowly blooming and unfurling and reaching for the sun. He cracks stupid jokes with Usnavi. He lets Benny ruffle his hair once and awhile. He stops by the salon the mornings he doesn’t have class to weather the neighborhood gossip and Daniela’s teasing comments about the “wild lifestyle” the three of them are living.

(And when Sonny comes home for his first break from college, carting a massive stack of homework and wearing a look of overwhelmed terror, Ruben sits with him the whole weekend and helps him work through it.

“You’re really smart,” he says as Sonny packs up to go back. “You’ve got this. But call me any time, okay? Don’t let yourself drown.”

Sonny hugs him, eyes bright, and says that he’s _so_ glad Ruben’s a part of the family now, because he’d be completely lost if it was just Usnavi around to help him with this shit. Ruben looks like Sonny just sucker punched him and handed him the moon at the same time while Usnavi watches the whole thing from a prime spot at the kitchen table, stubbornly blinking back his own tears.)

He expands in their new apartment, too. While his first place was cold and impersonal, here she can feel him everywhere. He stacks the shelves of the bookcase in the office with books on science and math and poetry, of all things. He keeps forgetting to buy shampoo and so uses hers (because he can’t stand the cheap stuff Usnavi buys), which means his sweaters always smell like citrus. He scribbles complicated equations in notebooks that he leaves scattered around the apartment: buried under stacks of tests or perched precariously on the nightstand or lying forgotten next to the sink—little snapshots into that big brain of his.

(“I forget sometimes,” Usnavi says on a Thursday evening, thumbing through one of the notebooks, “how fucking smart he is.”

“Yeah,” Vanessa agrees from her spot on the couch. Ruben’s towering intellect can be little intimidating at times, though she knows he downplays it around most people. Like he’s scared of what might happen if someone found out. “He’s kinda out of our league, isn’t he?”

Usnavi huffs, sitting down next to her. “You’re _both_ way out of my league.”

Vanessa flicks her hair over her shoulder. “You’re right. Why do we put up with you again?”

“Because I’m the only one capable of expressing _feelings_ like a normal human and you would die without my coffee?” Usnavi fires back, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

She shrugs, feigning casualness, but he’s right. He’s much more than either of those things, too—a bright star that it sometimes feels like she and Ruben are in orbit around. Or maybe they all orbit each other? All of them stars sharing their own little corner of the galaxy?

Whatever. She sucks at metaphors.

Usnavi kicks his feet up on the coffee table and fishes a pen out from under some of Ruben’s grading work. Vanessa watches, perplexed, as he draws something in the upper corner of Ruben’s notebook, right above a long string of numbers and letters she can’t begin to understand. When she leans in closer, she sees that it’s a detailed sunflower.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure he doesn’t get lost,” Usnavi says and hands the pen to her.

She doesn’t have Usnavi’s artistic talent, but she still manages what she thinks is a pretty cute drawing of three stick figures holding hands—one with a flat cap, one with long hair and a skirt, and one in a baggy sweater.

“Aww,” Usnavi says when he sees it and flips to another page.

They spend the next hour planting little sketches all over Ruben’s notebooks, putting them back just before Ruben stumbles through the front door. When Ruben goes to write something down the next day, Vanessa watches him freeze, tracing his fingers over the sunflower and stick figures.

“You and Usnavi did this?” he asks, quiet.

“Yep. No judgment on artistic quality, please.”

“I wouldn’t,” Ruben murmurs, smiling. “They’re perfect.”)

Little things feel like milestones when it comes to Ruben, and she’s constantly storing them away in a mental box for safekeeping:

The first time she makes him laugh so hard that coffee comes out of his nose.

The first time he works up the courage to kiss Usnavi clean on the mouth in the middle of the bodega, uncaring of who might see.

The first time he wears short sleeves outside of the safety of their apartment, and his hands twitch with nerves but he lasts the whole day, through all of the inevitable stares. By the end of it, she’s so fucking proud of him her heart feels like it’s about to burst right out of her chest and she kisses him until they’re both breathless.

The first time he talks with his mother after they’ve started dating and introduces them as his partners right there on Skype, not backing down an inch when she arches a surprised eyebrow and asks, “both of them?”

(In the end, Stefania said she was happy for them, all of them, and she now calls to speak with Vanessa and Usnavi almost as much as she does Ruben. For Vanessa, whose mother is often a stone weighing her down, and Usnavi, whose mother is a slowly fading memory, having her around means more than they’ve been able to say.

They keep her updated on the bodega and the salon and any interesting local gossip. They tell her the things that Ruben can’t, or doesn’t quite know how to—that it’s hard, but he’s getting better, and he isn’t alone. That the scars are fading, slowly, and the nightmares come less and less and above all else, they love him.

“I know you do,” she says to them. “I’m so glad you do.”

And maybe, sometimes, they reach out to her if they’re having a bad day and need something beyond what they can give each other. Vanessa calls her when she has to split her paycheck again to cover her own mother’s constant bills, and Stefania listens patiently through her ranting and the frustrated tears she can’t keep from shedding. Usnavi, when he finds out that she’s part Dominican, starts asking for traditional recipes he can no longer remember.

They all make a point to call her together on Mother’s Day, and on the anniversary of Usnavi’s parents’ deaths, when Usnavi looks ready to rattle out of his skin, Ruben quietly puts the phone to Usnavi’s ear and Stefania talks to him for hours in Spanish. He reemerges with tearstained cheeks and buries his face in Ruben’s neck, mumbling, “thank you,” against his skin.

“She loves you guys,” Ruben says, pulling Usnavi close. “Probably more than me, at this point.”

“That’s not true,” Vanessa says, folding herself against Usnavi’s back and pressing a kiss to his hair. “But we love her, too.”)

Her and Usnavi weren’t missing anything, before Ruben. That’s a common misconception, she thinks—that they were trying to fill some kind of hole. Ruben surprised them both (though probably Usnavi more, considering the whole Bisexual Awakening that came with it) and they consciously expanded to make room for him. It hasn’t always been easy, adjusting to a new person in their relationship (who is also carrying a lot of complicated baggage), but now she can’t begin the fathom shrinking back to two again.  

Ruben just … _fits._ He doesn’t get exhausted by Usnavi’s manic energy—the way he always seems to move at hyperspeed—and he understands the days when the barrio is too small for her, when she’s overcome by the urge to get on a train and just _go._ Somewhere. Anywhere.

(It becomes another of their Things, when they have the time. Sometimes it’s all three of them, sometimes it’s just her and Ruben, but they’ll get on the subway and ride it until they reach somewhere new, then get off and explore.

It doesn’t always ease the ache in her bones, but it helps.

They’ve been all over the city at this point—down to the bottom of Manhattan, west into Jersey, and as far east as the line would take them. She knows Ruben has been browsing the Amtrak website recently, but she’s kept her mouth shut.

If he wants to surprise her, she isn’t going to ruin it.

He’d better hurry up, though. She’s never been anywhere and she’s finding it hard to contain her excitement at the thought of a longer trip, of leaving New York behind entirely for even just a few days.)

He’s brilliant and kind and hilarious when he wants to be and he’s bloomed into something _gorgeous_ and she refuses to lose him.

She won’t. She _can’t._


	2. Chapter 2

When the bus _finally_ pulls up at her stop, she exits at a dead sprint, uncaring of how crazy she looks. It’s been close to an hour since Ruben texted her and God knows what might have happened during that window.

She bypasses the college, knocking a dude off his skateboard in her haste. He screams obscenities after her and she flips him off as she rounds the corner. Three blocks to go, and she’s never been anything close to religious, but she’s praying right now to anyone that might be listening: _let him be okay, let him be okay, let him be okay._

_Please let him be okay._

The front door of the café has one of those annoying bells that rings every time it opens. She tumbles inside with none of her usual grace and it echoes above the low murmur of noise.

“Can I help you?” a boy behind the counter asks, looking at her warily.

She ignores him, desperately scanning the room. Her chest is heaving, her breaths loud in her ears, drowning out everything else. She wonders if the kid can hear her frantic heartbeat from here.

Where the fuck is he?

She’s about to despair (and call the police to report a kidnapping) when she finally spots him: back corner, gaping at her from a small booth. She can’t see the face of the person across from him but it sure as hell isn’t Connie.

“V-Vanessa?” he stutters as she approaches. “What are you doing here?”

She takes him in quickly, tallying up the details in her head. His fingers are twitching, nervous, against the table; his shoulders are tense; his skin a shade too pale; and his eyes keep darting from her face to the man across the table.

She has no idea what Jason Cole looks like, but she doesn’t need a physical description to know this is him. It’s written in every taut line of Ruben’s body.

“Are you okay?” she asks in Spanish, ignoring Jason’s quiet, “who is this, Ruben?”

“I’m fine,” Ruben insists, also switching languages. “I sent you a text.”

“Idiot, that’s why I’m here. That’s him, isn’t it? Want me to punch him while you make a break for it?”

Jason is looking back and forth between them like he’s at a tennis match and it would be funny if she wasn’t so furious.

“Ruben, what’s going on?”

It’s more of a demand than a question, laden with authority. She’s met a hundred men like him—rich and successful, handsome enough to think it erases all of their other flaws, smart enough to consider themselves invincible and above everyone else, so entitled that they’re constantly trying to bend the world around them to suit their needs.

And she _hates_ that Ruben bends for him. Holds up a placating hand and murmurs “sorry, please just give us a minute?” like this cabrón deserves any sort of explanation from him.

Or anything from him at all.

(God, she wants to _hit him._ Until he _bleeds._ )

Ruben stands and beckons her outside. She follows, still seething and aware of Jason Cole twisting in his seat to watch them go.

 _"I agreed to come here,”_ Ruben says outside, still in Spanish.

“Why?” she demands. “You don’t owe him a goddamn thing.”

 _“_ I know.”

“Do you?” she presses.

“ _Yes_ **,** ” he insists.

“What is he doing here, anyway? How did he find you?”

“Long story. And he needs my help.”

“Really?” Vanessa says, though she doesn’t think she should be surprised. “After everything? What a fucking bastard.”

The corner of Ruben’s mouth quirks sadly. She wants to take his hand and march him back to the bus stop—or go back inside and break Jason Cole’s nose and _then_ march him back to the bus stop—but Ruben isn’t panicking right now and that means he’s in charge of this situation.

It’s his past sitting at the table in there.

“I can still punch him for you, if you want?” she offers.

“Maybe,” Ruben says. “Not yet, though. I told him we could talk for a few hours. Try to come up with a solution.”

“To his alternate personality, or whatever?”

“Yeah.”

“He doesn’t deserve that from you, you know,” she says, because she _needs_ him to understand this.

“I know,” he repeats, jaw tensing, and she decides not to push the matter any further while they’re outside in the middle of the street. They’ve already caused a scene and she knows how much Ruben hates that.

“And you’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yes,” Ruben says and he doesn’t sound like he’s lying. “I might need to throw up later or something, but I’m okay. I promise.”

She believes him, but. “I’m not leaving you here alone with him, though. Don’t ask me to do that.”

Ruben shakes his head. “No … I—I mean I didn’t want him to find out about you or Usnavi, just in case, but now that you’re here … yes, please stay.”

 _“_ I called Usnavi _,”_ she admits, refusing to feel sheepish about it. Considering that it _is_ You-Know-Who in that café (or one half of him, anyway), she thinks their earlier panic was entirely justified. “He should be here soon.”

 _“_ Of course, he will,” Ruben sighs, rueful. “I _can_ actually take care of myself, you know. _”_

(He says that like she _doesn’t_ know _._ Like she hasn’t seen him fall to tattered pieces and scrape himself back together again over and over through sheer force of will. Like she forgets that the scars on his body were once cuts that bled and _hurt_ and had to be stitched up with yards of thread, some of them all the way to his _bones._ Like she isn’t in awe of every single step forward he takes, every single battle he wins.

Like he isn’t the bravest fucking person she’s ever met.)

“I’ve always known that,” she says and watches surprise ripple across his face. “But you don’t have to do it alone anymore.” She reaches out and gently flicks his shoulder. “So, don’t be a fucking martyr, okay?”

His expression softens and his shoulders slump, some of the tension finally bleeding out of him. “I won’t, I promise. I just … I need to do this. I can try to explain it later, but I need to.”

“Okay,” she agrees reluctantly.

“If he makes a wrong move, though, you still have full permission to take him out.”

“Good.” He smiles at the satisfaction in her tone and she catches his sleeve before he can turn to go back inside.

“Hey, te amo.”

(It still isn’t always the easiest for her to say: that phrase, in any language, but right now she can see that he needs it and she can be brave, too.)

He surprises her by leaning in and kissing her cheek. _“_ Te amo. And thank you, for coming.”

“We said we would, remember?” she points out, squeezing his hand. “Siempre _.”_

He makes a quiet, wounded sound in the back of his throat and squeezes her hand back hard enough to hurt, but he isn’t going to break. She knows that for certain.

Jason Cole will never be strong enough to do that.

“I’ll just be a few tables away,” she says. “And you can still walk away right now if you need to.

Ruben shakes his head. “No. I have to do this.” He pauses, chewing on his lip. “Can you run Usnavi interference when he gets here?”

“Sure, I’m great at that.”

There. Finally, a smile that gets close to his eyes. Then, he drops her hand and squares his shoulders like he’s going to war.

Jason is still watching them when they reenter the café, brow furrowed. Vanessa touches Ruben’s shoulder, one last reassurance, and then he’s sliding back into the booth while she plants herself near the door to keep an eye out for Usnavi (and watch Jason like a hawk).

It’s going to be a long afternoon.

 

_ _

 

“So, who was that?” Jason asks as soon as Ruben sits down.

There is no point in lying now. “My girlfriend.”

He bitterly watches Jason do a quick double take to Vanessa and then try to hide it. “Wow, that’s … good for you.”

“Save it,” Ruben mutters, wishing he could be offended by Jason’s obvious disbelief.

When Jason knew him, though, the closest he ever got to a girlfriend was a fucking sex doll.

(And now he almost wants to tell Jason about Usnavi, just to see the look on his face, but that would be cheap and Usnavi deserves better than to be used for shock value.)

“Right, sorry,” Jason says, shifting his full attention back to Ruben.

Ruben has one of his notebooks open and is trying not to tap his fingers against the table too much. He always gets twitchy when he’s nervous or stressed and he hates it. In his defense, staying still when his heart is beating so damn fast and loud he’s pretty sure the whole café can hear it, is … challenging. To say the least.

Hopefully he’s managed to keep most of his roiling emotions off his face.

(Not that Jason has ever cared what he’s feeling.)

“As I was saying,” Jason continues, “the surgery was successful but lately I’ve been losing time. A few minutes there. A few more here. And a week ago I lost an entire hour. I think he’s coming back.”

“Probably,” Ruben agrees absently, already running calculations through his head.

“Well if the surgery was successful then how is that possible?” Jason demands. “The drug was supposed to kill him.”

“And Blackout was supposed suppress him every night but he developed an immunity to that,” Ruben fires back. “Whether you like it or not, Jason, he’s a _part of you._ It may be that it’s impossible to kill him without killing you. Most likely, the drug didn’t get rid of him completely, just put him into a deeper, more long term coma, and now he’s adapting.”

Jason sits back in his chair, devastation sweeping across his face. Ruben tries to muster some sympathy but his entire upper body is aching with phantom pain and he can’t bring himself to feel it.

“There has to be _something_ we can do,” Jason says.

 _Buy a gun,_ Ruben thinks instinctively and cringes.

“We can try,” is what he says out loud, glancing at his watch. “I’ll stay for five more hours. That’s it.”

“Ruben—”

“That’s _it,”_ Ruben snaps. “You’re lucky I’m even _here._ So, shut up at let me think, okay?” He pushes his empty coffee cup across the table. “Buy me another latte or something.”

Jason frowns, frustrated, but is standing to order another drink when the bell above the door jangles loudly again and Usnavi barrels inside in a blur black and grey. He spots Ruben almost immediately and then he clocks on Jason and his brow furrows.  Ruben watches him swiftly put the pieces together and open his mouth, probably to yell, but Vanessa, as promised, snags the sleeve of his coat before he can get a word out and hauls him over to her table, whispering low and urgent in his ear.

Jason, unfortunately, has noticed this exchange and is looking at him quizzically again. “Who was _that?”_ He looks over at Usnavi again. “Do you have a twin you never mentioned?”

 _Would you have noticed if I did?_ Ruben wants to ask, but he already knows the answer.

(Ian was the only one who took time to meet his family and isn’t that fucking tragic?)

“No,” he says and pauses there, trying to decide what to do. Lying would easy, but is it a cop out?

Usnavi has his head bowed, listening to Vanessa, but Ruben can see the effort it’s taking to keep himself still, to not get up and haul Ruben away or a least make sure he’s safe, and Ruben’s heart _aches._

“He’s important to me,” he settles on, because he doesn’t owe Jason the truth, either. “That’s all you need to know. Well, that and the fact that they’ll both probably kill you if anything bad happens to me.”

Jason freezes, whipping his head around to stare wide-eyed at Ruben. “Wait … did you _tell_ them about me?”

Ruben tenses with reflexive fear, but he’s not going to back down from this. “Yes.”

“Ruben—” Jason starts, going into condescending lecture mode.

Yeah. No.

“I don’t owe you your secret anymore, Jason,” he says, firm, and resists the urge to roll up his sleeves. (His scars are worth more than cheap shock value, too.) “Not after what Ian did to me. In case you haven’t noticed, he made it pretty hard to function like a normal human being, especially when you throw a _relationship_ into the mix, so it’s not like I can just hide it. And I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Jason once again looks like he’s going to argue and Ruben snaps his notebook closed. “I’m happy to leave right now if that’s too much for you.”

“No,” Jason says, quickly. “No, it’s fine. I understand.”

He marches off to get more coffee and Ruben dares a glance at Vanessa and Usnavi. Usnavi has taken off his hat and coat and when he sees Ruben looking, he mouths, “you okay?”

Ruben nods and responds with a thumbs-up for good measure. Usnavi smiles, strained but tender, and returns it before shifting his attention back to Vanessa. Jason sets a new latte in front of him with a loud rattle.

“Is there any way to make the drug stronger?”

“Maybe,” Ruben mutters and hunches back over his notebook, keeping Vanessa and Usnavi in the corner of his vision.

It’s going to be a long afternoon.

 

_ _

 

The sun has set, the café is practically empty, Vanessa has had five cups of terrible coffee (they keep forgetting the damn cinnamon), and Usnavi has nervously shredded at least an entire container of napkins when Ruben finally tears a page out of his notebook and hands it to Jason.

“There. That’s a formula to strengthen the drug. It’ll probably end up killing you along with Ian but you’re welcome to risk it,” he says and God, he looks exhausted.

Jason takes the paper and carefully folds it before putting it in his pocket. “Thank you, Ruben. I owe you.”

Ruben laughs—a bitter, awful sound Vanessa never wants to hear again. “Just leave. Please.”

Jason opens his mouth, closes it again, and stands with a nod. He glances at them as he walks past and the bell clangs behind him.

“Go,” Usnavi says, already moving towards Ruben, “I’ve got this.”

He crouches next to Ruben, who has put his head in his hands, and pulls him close, pressing their foreheads together. Vanessa follows Jason Cole out into the night.

He hasn’t made it far and she catches him on the corner. “Hey!”

Jason stops and turns to face her. He looks wary.

Good.

“You’re lucky,” she says, pouring all of her pent-up rage into her voice. She's never hated anyone like she hates Jason _fucking_ Cole. “That he’s kind. I’m not.”

Before Jason has a chance to react, she closes the distance between them in two swift strides and punches him straight in the face. He reels back with a pained shout as something _cracks_ and fire lances up Vanessa’s arm from her hand.

“Fuck,” she hisses, shaking it out. Her knuckles are swollen, but there is blood pouring from Jason’s nose so she’s going to consider this a win.

Jason bends over, clutching his nose, as Vanessa draws herself up to her full height, wishing suddenly for her heels. “Listen to me, asshole, you’ve done enough damage to him. Ten lifetimes worth. So, you’re gonna leave, like you promised you would and if you _ever_ try to contact him, in _any_ way, I promise you that I will make your life _hell._ You understand?”

Jason nods, still holding his bloody (and hopefully broken) nose. There are tears of pain dripping from the corners of his eyes and it isn’t enough. Not nearly.

(But she knows that she could kill him right here and it still wouldn’t be enough to make up for all of Ruben’s sleepless nights and flashbacks and scars and the days he can barely hold himself together.

Nothing would be.)

She crosses her arms over her chest to keep from hitting him again (and again and again and again) and pins him with the strongest glare she has in her arsenal (the one Usnavi says is capable of freezing hell over).

“Good. Start walking.”

Jason straightens and for once, doesn’t argue, just slinks away down the street. She watches him until he turns a corner and the shadows swallow him.  

Good fucking riddance.

The boy working the counter glances at her nervously when she reenters the café.

“Um … we’re actually closing, so…” he stammers, clutching a dishtowel like a shield.

“We’re leaving,” she says, most of her focus on Usnavi and Ruben.

Usnavi has crammed into the booth next to Ruben and is rubbing gentle circles on his back. Ruben looks vaguely ill, but still present, thank God. She stops by the table. Usnavi immediately notices her hand and arches his eyebrows.

She mouths “later” at him and puts a careful hand on Ruben’s shoulder. “Hey, wanna go home?”

“God, yes,” Ruben murmurs.

It’s a quiet walk back to the bus stop, Ruben bracketed between them, and when the bus rolls up with a hiss and a long creak, it’s mercifully almost empty. They put Ruben by the window near the back while Vanessa takes the aisle and Usnavi sits in the row in front of them, sprawling out sideways.

She wants to say something, but Ruben looks miles away and she doesn’t know where to start.

“Do you think he ruined me?” Ruben asks suddenly, voice cracking.

Usnavi sits up straighter, twisting to face them, and Vanessa feels all the air dry up in her lungs.

“What?” Usnavi asks in stunned disbelief.

Ruben’s hands are trembling in his lap. “I got a PhD when I was _twenty._ I finished undergrad when I was _sixteen_. My professors at MIT told me that I was one of the brightest minds of my generation, that someday I could win a _Nobel Prize._ Change the world. Save _lives._ I was named head of Pharmacology Research at IMH when I was ­ _twenty-two._ I had … I had other offers, better ones, but I wanted to work in a hospital. I wanted to help people. And then … _five years.”_

His voice cracks again, gives out. His eyes gleam in the passing streetlights and Vanessa doesn’t know what to do.

Ruben sucks in a heaving breath and keeps going, before either of them can figure out something to say. “I spent five years working on a drug for him. They offered me a _million dollars_ for it.”

Usnavi jerks and Vanessa feels her mouth drop open before she can stop it.

A _million_ dollars? She can’t even _begin_ to fathom that kind of money.

“And I turned it down,” Ruben says, digging his nails into his jeans. “I turned it down because I thought Jason was my _friend_ and I didn’t want to betray him and now … he ruined me, didn’t he? I had so much … I could have done so much and _he ruined me.”_

The words feel like a bomb going off in the middle of the bus, ripping them all to pieces.

Shit. She still sucks at this; she doesn’t know what to _do._

Usnavi blows out a long breath, visibly gathering himself. “Right. Okay. So the back of a bus ain’t the best place for a grand romantic speech but you need to hear it right now so I’m goin’ for it.”

Ruben blinks at him, eyes wet and shoulders shaking, and Vanessa curls a hand around his knee in silent support, content to let Usnavi take the lead for the moment.

(Thank God one of them is good at this.)

“Okay,” Usnavi says. “Okay so maybe you don’t meet He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and you become a Nobel Prize winning chemist worth millions of dollars, maybe that’s objectively better, but querido _,_ then we never woulda met you. And I’m not sayin’ I’m glad any of that awful shit happened to you—I _hate_ it, I hate that you got hurt and I hate him—them—for hurting you—but, fuck, I’m so happy you’re in my life.”

Usnavi pauses, wiping a hand across his face. Vanessa’s chest is tight again, too small to hold everything she’s feeling right now, for both of them.

“I’m so happy you’re here. And you’re so fucking smart, Ruben. You’re _brilliant._ Einstein reincarnated or some shit. But that isn’t _all_ you are.” He reaches across the seat and curls his fingers in Ruben’s coat. “We don’t love you ‘cause you’re smart, querido _._ We love you ‘cause you’re _you._ You’re funny and kind and you tolerate my dumb jokes and you’re fantastic in bed—I have a list that’s miles long, I’ll read it all to you someday, if you need me to—the point is: you’re not just some brain in a jar.”

Usnavi leans further over the seat, snagging Ruben’s hand and squeezing it tight. “Te amo _,_ okay? You’re incredible and he’s a total bastard who doesn’t deserve another single one of your thoughts and you can totally still go out and win a Nobel Prize if you wanted to, but if not who cares? It’s what, a gold medal with some random dude’s face on it? The important thing to us, querido _,_ is that you’re _happy_.”

God. She didn’t know it was possible to feel this much all at once and she’s gonna start crying any minute now.

Still, she manages to squeeze Ruben’s knee and choke out a soft “ditto” around the huge lump in her throat. Usnavi wheezes a faint laugh, cheeks wet, and touches her hand, too. A silent agreement.

Ruben hovers for a moment, blinking, and then his face crumples and he lets out a small, overwhelmed sob. Usnavi looks briefly terrified, but Ruben rocks forward, pressing against the back of the seat, and hauls him into a hug.

“I love you,” he hiccups against Usnavi’s neck. “Oh my god. I … I _am …_ with you. With both of you. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my _life…”_

The tears steal his voice after that, but he shifts back to hug Vanessa, too, and she hides her face (and her own stupid tears) in his hair, holding Usnavi’s hand tight across the barrier of the seat.

They stay like that, tangled up in each other, for the rest of the ride home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still two more chapters to come because I. Can't. Stop. Writing. (Help) Both should be up next week. 
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr @wobblyspelling. :)


	3. Chapter 3

Ruben is exhausted by the time they finally make it back to the apartment, barely pausing to change before tumbling face first into bed, but Usnavi feels too restless and wound up to sleep. He fixes himself tea for something to do with his hands (a recipe that Stefania shared with them, saying that it used to help when Ruben was younger) while Vanessa leans against the counter.

Her eyes are still red and she’s got mascara smudged underneath them, but he doubts he looks much better. His heart is sore in his chest and he can still taste lingering traces of salt in his mouth.

“That was some speech,” Vanessa says as he pulls down a mug for her, too. “You were never that smooth with me.”

“I got better,” he insists. “He doesn’t make me nervous the way you did.”

Terrified, more like. At least at the beginning. Ruben felt like sand, always slipping through his fingers, and he was so scared that one day he would be gone forever.

Even now, he’s worried that speech on the bus wasn’t enough.

(He’s always gonna worry, a small part of him, that his rambling words and his love won’t be strong enough to keep the tides that are Vanessa and Ruben pinned to his shore. They’re ambitious and brilliant and burning hotter than a rocket on reentry sometimes. And he knows that no matter how fast he goes, he’s never gonna be able to keep up if they decide to leave.)

“You did,” Vanessa agrees, snagging a paper towel to wipe off the remnants of her make up. “It was pretty damn impressive, though. I think you broke his brain for a minute.”

She’s thanking him, he knows, in that roundabout way of hers—for stepping up to the plate—and he wants to be proud of himself, but.

He glances at the closed door of the bedroom.

(Sand, still, even after all this time.)

“Vanessa,” he says quietly, more vulnerable than he wants to be right now, “tell me he’s gonna be okay.”

Vanessa slings an arm across his shoulders, resting her head against his. “He’s gonna be okay. He’s got us and I think we’re doing pretty all right so far, all things considered. Plus, he’s tough.”

Usnavi hums, comforted by the certainty in her voice, and turns to pour water into their mugs. “Do you need ice for your hand?”

Vanessa glances down at her knuckles with a wince and a nod so Usnavi goes digging in the freezer. They sit opposite each other at the kitchen table with their mugs and Usnavi gently lays a bag of frozen peas across Vanessa’s hand.

“You’ve always had a mean arm,” he says.

Vanessa twines her legs with his. “I’ve never actually hit anyone before, though.”

“Did you get him good?”

“Broke his nose, I think.”

Damn. He wishes he could’ve seen that (and maybe landed a punch or two of his own, because he may be scrappy but he _has_ hit people before and he knows how to make it count).

“Good,” he says darkly and runs a hand through his hair.

He still feels twitchy—adrenaline running slowly out of him—and too big for his skin. There is more he might need to say to Ruben, maybe he should write some of it down. Put it in Ruben’s notebooks alongside the drawings—pieces of a list that just keeps getting longer as the months go on.

(How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.)

“Thank you,” he adds to Vanessa, nudging his foot against her calf. “For doing that.”

She snorts. “Wasn’t exactly a sacrifice.”

“It was still awesome, though,” he insists. “Super badass. I’m kind of in awe a little bit. And I love you.”

Her face scrunches up and she huffs, “I love you, too,” all grudging, but he can totally see the affectionate smile lingering in the corner of her mouth. He grins at her, crooked, and takes a long sip of his tea. Breathes out into the stillness of the apartment and lets it calm him—this place that the three of them built together.

(Five years ago, if someone told him that this was going to be his life, he would have laughed. Back then he was drowning in debt and stress with half an eye on Vanessa—so close to him but in a completely different orbit—and half an eye on finding a future in the past.

Back then he worked so hard and for so long his bones ached, made him feel fifty-four at twenty-four, and always one step away from drowning, swept up in the storms constantly raging in his head and heart.

Vanessa was a culmination and Ruben was a revelation, but they both were a fulcrum upon which his world shifted (Vanessa: oh look, he isn’t so alone anymore; he has someone he can lean on without feeling guilty about it. Ruben: oh look, he’s into _dudes_ (whoa) and here is someone else he isn’t _too much_ for) and sometimes he doesn’t recognize himself anymore. In the best possible way.

He’d be a stranger to twenty-four-year-old Usnavi, that’s for sure. His apartment has _two_ bedrooms and he actually gets a few days off here and there because he can afford employees who aren’t Sonny and he’s dating _two_ people who are like _damn._

He’s _happy._ Imagine that.)

“Hey, I managed to get Friday afternoon off,” Vanessa says, breaking their comfortable silence. “We should do something, the three of us.”

“The trip we were planning?”

(He has a notebook of his own—one he keeps hidden at the bottom of his nightstand drawer—and in it he has carefully charted every trigger and every sleepless night and every bad day since about three weeks after Ruben stumbled into his life.

He actually started the day he apologized for accidentally inciting a panic attack and Ruben smiled at him, sad and terrible, and said, “it’s okay. I’m a minefield. I don’t expect you to remember where all the bombs are.”

Two and change years later and he’s got pages and pages filled:

 

_Don’t touch his neck._

_Heat = bad._

_Nicknames sparingly and in Spanish only. Don’t shorten his name. EVER._

_No drugs without explaining what they are first. Show him the bottle. Even if it’s aspirin or something._

_Don’t walk up behind him unannounced._

_Don’t grab him. ANYWHERE._

_Spanish helps during flashbacks._

_Static over the radio = bad._

_Trying to shake him awake during a nightmare = BAD. Give him space._

_Burn Sonny’s baseball bat and apologize to him later._

_Don’t take him anywhere without giving him a vague idea of where you’re going first. Even if you want to surprise him._

 

He’s tried to balance it with good things along the way, like some kind of emotional checkbook.

For example, the night when they first all slept together just has **_FUCK_** written under the date in big block letters and underlined several times.

There’s more and it probably all reads like a schoolgirl’s diary but he doesn’t care. He’s never claimed to have any chill:

 

_He laughed. He’s capable of laughter. ( Make it happen again.) _

_PhD. He’s a fucking DOCTOR. And he’s 28. FUCK._

_He and Vanessa are getting along. YES._

_He met Nina today. I think they talked for like two hours and I understood about ten things they said._

_Shit. Shit I like him so much._

_(Vanessa does, too, though. I CAN TELL.)_

_WE ARE OFFICIALLY DATING!_

_So we broke a table trying to salsa. Vanessa is still laughing._

_HE SAID HE LOVES US._

_Is sex supposed to be this mind-blowing? No one ever said sex could be this MIND-BLOWING._

_SHORT SLEEVES. All day. All DAY._

_He likes poetry._

_He’s a well-spring of random science trivia when he’s drunk._

_(He’s also fucking CUTE.)_

_SHORT SLEEVES TO A PARTY WITH ALMOST EVERYONE WE KNOW – HAPPY 4 th of JULY. _

And on a new page, right at the top: _3 months – no nightmares. CELEBRATE.)_

“Maybe,” Vanessa says. “We should probably ask him, though. After today.”

He hums in wordless agreement and finishes the last of his tea. Weariness is finally starting to creep in—it’s been a long fucking day. “I’ll still call in sick for him in the morning.”

“You know he hates it when you do that,” Vanessa says, but there’s no admonishment in her voice.

“I know,” Usnavi says, absently reaching out to adjust the bag on Vanessa’s hand, “but he can’t always tell when he needs it. Especially after crap days.”

Days when the ghosts get so loud he can’t hear anything else, and they’ve never dealt with one of those ghosts coming back to life and actually _showing up._ Ruben hasn’t crashed yet, not completely, but Usnavi is still bracing for it, just in case.

“I wish I’d hit him more than once,” Vanessa mutters.

He takes her good hand—curled tight against the wood of the table—and brings it to his lips. “Me, too, but it’s over now.”

“Is it?”

He glances at the bedroom again. No screams so far. “I hope so.”

Vanessa sighs and smooths her hand down his cheek. “We should try to get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs and puts their mugs in the sink (if Ruben’s operating at normal capacity, he’ll get an eye roll for it in the morning).

The peas go back in the freezer and they change huddled together in the bathroom, trying to make as little noise as possible. Fortunately, Ruben is used to them getting into and out of the bed at this point (no longer wakes with a jolt and a cut off breath if one of them shifts too much), so he barely stirs when they slide in on either side of him.

Usnavi leaves the curtains open (just in case, because in his notebook is also written _very dark rooms = BAD_ ) and puts a careful arm over Ruben. Vanessa does the same, lacing their fingers together against Ruben’s side.

Sleep comes mercifully quick.

 

_ _

 

He still wakes just as the sun is coming up (habit) and extracts himself to make coffee, snagging Ruben’s phone from his bag on the way out the door.

He still doesn’t really notice the similarities between them, but he’s come to grudgingly acknowledge that other people do and even learned how to use it to his occasional advantage.

(Like the time Sonny got hurt at school and he couldn’t close the store and he didn’t know what to do until Ruben snagged the cap from his head and said, “I’ll go pick him up.”

He blinked, stunned. “What? But they need a guardian to sign off on it and—”

“Everyone says we look alike,” Ruben said with a shrug and smile. “Let’s test it.”

So Usnavi spent nearly two restless hours cleaning and restacking shelves until Ruben appeared from around the back.

“He’s fine,” he said before Usnavi could open his mouth. “Took a ball to the face in P.E. and ended up with a bad nosebleed, but nothing’s broken. I put him upstairs with some ice and I’ll keep an eye on him.” He flipped the cap off his head and handed it back to Usnavi. “Just wanted to give you this back. How on earth do you wear it all day?”

Usnavi put the cap back on his head, deciding not to dignify that with a response. “And the school?”

“Didn’t suspect a thing,” Ruben said.

“Huh.”

And of course, there was the time Benny walked in just as Ruben was kissing Usnavi good-bye and said, loudly, “okay that is so _weird,_ man.”

He got used to it, though, after a while. Everyone did. Usnavi’s running theory is that people freak out about how similar him and Ruben look until they get to know them and see how _different_ they are. Then it isn’t a problem.)

He parks himself at the table with a cup of coffee and dials the number for Hostos.

This is another occasional advantage he exploits.

“Hi,” he says when a lady in HR picks up, shifting his voice to match Ruben’s, “this is Dr. Marcado, from Natural Sciences? I’m afraid I’m going to have to miss class today and Friday evening. Family emergency.”

The woman—Emma, he thinks her name is—expresses her sympathies and asks if everything is okay.

(Ruben had to call out fairly regularly in the beginning, when he was still getting his sea legs back, but he’s awesome and a great teacher so the college has always been mad understanding.)

“Yes, everything’ll be fine,” he says. “Just something unexpected that came up. I’ll be back in on Monday.”

“That’s fine. We’ll get someone to cover the classes and let your tutoring students know.”

“Thank you so much.” He glances up to see Vanessa leaning against the doorframe with an arched eyebrow and winks at her. “I really appreciate it. See you Monday.”

“It’s kinda creepy when you do that,” Vanessa says after he hangs up. “Just saying.”

He shrugs and then notices that she’s fully dressed. “You headin’ out?”

She nods. “Yeah, see you tonight.”

He leans up for her parting kiss, watching as she snags her coat and vanishes out the door. He never likes leaving Ruben alone in bed if he can help it, so he adds his mug to growing collection in the sink and retreats back to the bedroom.

Ruben is still sprawled out in the middle, adorably rumpled, and Usnavi takes Vanessa’s side, wiggling himself under Ruben’s arm and pressing a kiss to his jaw. Ruben huffs, still half asleep, and twists to seal their mouths together, hell yes.

They make out and it’s lazy, but heating up quick. Usnavi shifts to get a leg between Ruben’s, dipping his fingers into the waistband of Ruben’s underwear.

Ruben makes a strangled noise and pulls away, squeezing his eyes shut. Shit.

Usnavi withdraws immediately. “One of those days, huh?”

“Sorry,” Ruben sighs, blinking his eyes back open—face twisted in disappointment.

“Nope, no apologizing, remember? Are we talkin’ red or yellow?”

(That’s another thing in his notebook: the color system they’ve worked out.

_Green = great, awesome, more of that ASAP._

_Yellow = slow down, hit pause, we might be able to pick this up later._

_Red = NOPE, NOPE, give me fucking space, please, nothing is happening today._

They mostly use it for intimate situations, but it’s applied to other things, too. Like going out or larger social gatherings or Ruben’s touch level in general. Pretty much all of their friends know some version of it and it saved them from a lot of potentially awful moments, in the early days.)

Ruben mulls it over and settles on, “yellow.”

Usnavi doesn’t let him see the internal sigh of relief that passes through his brain. “Okay. Is cuddling a no go?”

Another moment. “No, I think I’ll be okay.”

Usnavi slides back in, nuzzling gently against Ruben’s cheek. “Awesome. Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Ruben murmurs, kind of melting into him with a long exhale.

Usnavi’s chest tightens. It’s a familiar sensation and it pretty much happens every time all of Ruben’s walls come down and he does something stupidly cute/tender/loving/hot.

(So it happens a _lot_.)

They linger there, for a while—covers pulled up to their chins to ward off the autumn chill. Usnavi’s slowly drifting in and out of awareness, tracing random patterns across Ruben’s scarred back, when Ruben jerks suddenly and sits up.

“Shit, what time is it?” He looks frantically around for the clock and Usnavi snags his hand before he can scramble out of bed and take all the heat with him.

“Relax, I called in sick for you. You’re out ‘til Monday.”

Ruben groans, burying his head in his hands. “Again? They’re going to fire me at this rate.”

“You needed it,” Usnavi says, stubborn. “And they love you. They wouldn’t dare. Your students would riot.”

That earns him a muffled laugh and Ruben flopping back down next to him. “I don’t know about rioting. I’m not _that_ popular.” He goes quiet, then, drawing back into himself. “But you’re right. I needed it.”

It may be a stupid question, but Usnavi still asks, “you okay?”

It’s important. That Ruben doesn’t immediately nod. Instead his mouth twists and his brow furrows and he murmurs, “no, I don’t think so.”

Even though he slept through the night, there are dark circles smudged under his eyes and he looks gray and faded around the edges.

(Usnavi wishes for a time machine so he could go back and beat Jason Cole into the sidewalk.)

“I will be, though,” Ruben continues, louder, and sits up again. “I’ll make breakfast.”

“Yo, you don’t have to—”

“Dude,” Ruben says in practically the same tone Vanessa always uses. “After the bus last night? Let me make you fucking breakfast.”

Usnavi bites his lip to keep from smiling like a complete idiot and nods. Ruben gets up, pulling on a sweater, and makes a “stay” motion as he backs out the door.

Fine with him.

He pulls the covers back over his head, sinking into the warmth of the mattress and that strange, fuzzy place between sleep and waking. He’s drifting there again, thoughts chasing each other in lazy circles, when the sound of shattering glass echoes through the apartment.

Shit.

He’s out of bed between one panicked breath and the next, skidding into the living room so fast he nearly faceplants.

(Shit, _shit,_ shouldn’t have left him alone. You know better than this, man.)

Ruben is standing in the kitchen, staring down at a sea of broken glass with empty eyes. His hands are still out, like he’s holding something, and there is egg all over the tile.

“Ruben,” Usnavi says, loud, and Ruben jerks, blinking down at the mess with a confused expression.

“What?” He mutters. Then awareness dawns. “Fuck _.”_

“It’s okay,” Usnavi reassures him. “I’ll clean it up.”

“ _Fuck,”_ Ruben snarls again, halfway between frustrated and furious. “ _Fuck.”_

He curls his hands into fists and bends like he’s going to start cleaning the glass up. Alarmed, Usnavi lunges and puts an arm out in front of him.

“Querido _,_ I got it,” he says, firm. “It’s okay.”

Ruben’s shoulders slump. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s just a dish and some eggs. No biggie. Take two?” He nods at the fridge. “I’ll get the broom.”

“Okay,” Ruben says. Gathers himself a little more—Usnavi can almost see all of his jagged cracks smoothing over. “Yeah.”

Take two goes a hell of a lot smoother than take one and by the time Ruben is setting plates at the table, Usnavi has the rest of the kitchen completely glass and egg free.

“Hey,” Usnavi says after he’s made Ruben a cup of coffee (and fixed himself another, because God, he thinks he’s gonna need it this morning), “do you wanna talk about any of it? Fuckface or what I said? Anything. I’m here.”

(He knows about some of it. Not just Jason and Ian and that whole mess, but before. A childhood in San Juan, an absent father, brilliance even from a young age. Ruben—always five, ten, twenty steps ahead of everyone else, moving at light speed when the rest of the kids his age were crawling. A move to the States at eleven because Puerto Rico was too small for his crazy smart brain. A modest, warm house in Philly and two half-sisters from another man that didn’t stay. Ruben—surrounded by tutors and teachers and torn between the destiny he could have and the life he was leaving behind. Guilty because of the sacrifices his mother was making for his education, because he was barely around to get to know his sisters.

And, look, he’s not brilliant. He’s no genius, not even close. But he gets it, at least some of it. ‘Cause he’s got a secret that only Vanessa knows (hasn’t even told Ruben about it yet): he wanted to go to college. He had a list of schools, had a bunch of scholarship forms to fill out, had plans to study writing (hadn’t decided yet on creative or journalism, maybe both.) His parents were putting aside a little money into a fund to help him get started.

And then they got sick and then they were gone and college was out of the question. He burned the application papers and scraped his way through his last year of high school by the skin of his teeth. The dream went in a drawer that he hasn’t really opened since (with the exception of one late night with Vanessa, curled up together in bed, a little bit drunk and talking about what-might-have-beens.)

And he’s cool, really. He’s let it go. Shit happens. He’s proud of Nina and Sonny, knows they’re gonna go change the world, and he doesn’t need a fancy degree to feel worth something. He’s still full of stories, still got words on his tongue and running through his head. He’s got a family and two amazing people who love him, somehow.

But he gets it, the tear inside of Ruben (inside of Vanessa)—one life or another, forward or back, home or the horizon.

Ruben chose the horizon, but Usnavi likes to think he still found his way home.)

Across from him, Ruben runs a tired hand down his face.  “I don’t know. I’m … glad? Maybe that’s not the right word … he lives in my head. Both of them do. And they’ve become these huge specters and I’ve been looking over my shoulder in one way or another since Jamaica. So it was … shit I don’t know if ‘good’ is the right word, either. Cathartic? Whatever. I think it probably helped to finally have one of them show up. To remind myself that they’re human. And prove to myself that I’m not going to fall to pieces over it.”

He glances at the trash bin that is now full of broken glass with a wry smile. “Well, not _completely_ to pieces. A few pieces.”

“Vanessa punched him in the face,” Usnavi volunteers, hoping to ease some of the ache Ruben is still radiating, and Ruben’s eyebrows make a really impressive leap for his hairline. “Think she might’ve broken his nose.”

“Holy shit, really?”

“Yep.”

Ruben puts a hand over his mouth, delight blooming across his face. “Fuck, I love her.”

“I _know_ , right?” Usnavi says with great feeling.

Ruben shakes his head, then points his fork at Usnavi. “And you…” he pauses. Shakes his head again. “ _You.”_

Usnavi waits for more, but nothing seems to forthcoming. Ruben is just looking at him with this kind of awe that he is _never_ gonna get used to.

“I meant all of that,” he says. “But sorry for makin’ you cry.”

“Are you _kidding?”_ Ruben huffs and blinks, like he might start crying all over again. “You set the bar way too high, you know. I’m never going to be able to top _that.”_

Usnavi shrugs. His cheeks are hot. Words come tumbling out of him on a daily basis, including romantic ones, so why is everyone making such a big deal?

“You don’t have to. Nice thing about relationships—romantic stuff doesn’t require any kind of payback. I love you. You’re great. That’s enough.”

“Sometimes I think I dreamed you up,” Ruben says, still sounding a little shell-shocked. “Both of you. I keep waiting to wake up.”

Usnavi kicks him gently under the table. “Pretty sure you’re awake, man.”

Ruben makes a noncommittal sound and goes back to his eggs—only able to handle a small amount of Feelings so early in the morning (and honestly, people keep saying Ruben is his twin, but personality-wise he’s got _way_ more in common with Vanessa. Which definitely means Usnavi has a _type._ Huh.)

Once they’ve finished breakfast, Ruben clucks at him about the pile of dishes in the sink and puts him on drying duty.

They’re halfway through the stack when Usnavi remembers that they were supposed to have a discussion this morning. “Shit, right. I almost forget. Vanessa and I were kind of planning a trip to surprise you. Sort of like a joint ‘yay, three months with no nightmares,’ and ‘holy _shit_ two _years’_ deal. We were thinking we’d go tomorrow, but if it’s too much right now we can totally postpone it.”

Ruben hands him another dish. “How crowded will it be?”

“Not bad. Should be pretty quiet, this time of year.”

“And how far away is it?”

“’Bout two hours. Train and one other method of transportation that I’m not giving away ‘cause spoilers, but it shouldn’t be bad.”

Ruben rinses off the last dish and hands it to him with a faint smile. “Then I should be fine. Though I’m getting the feeling that you’re about to completely one-up me again, aren’t you?”

Usnavi winks at him. “Maybe. You’ll just have to find out.”

Ruben shakes his head, but it’s fond, and after Usnavi sticks the last dish in the cupboard he winds his arms around Ruben’s waist, resting his chin on Ruben’s shoulder. “So, what do you wanna do today?”

“Do you need to be at the store?” Ruben asks.

Usnavi plants a light kiss on his neck. “Nope. Covered today and tomorrow. Someone actually asked for _more_ hours. It’s a damn miracle.”

“I think it’s what happens when you employ people who aren’t precocious teenagers.”

“Whole new world.”

Ruben laughs (score) and twists around to kiss him. “Don’t think I’m up for going anywhere today.”

That isn’t surprising. “We still at yellow?”

Ruben exhales, shaky, and nods. “Yeah. Sor—yeah.”

“Okay,” Usnavi says, easy. “We got several options, then. One, go back to bed for the foreseeable future. Two, daytime TV, if you want something mindless and ridiculous. Three, reading—bed or couch, I’m not picky—with some hardcore cuddling thrown in there (same applies to TV, too, by the way). Whatever you need right now.”

Ruben mulls it over for a moment. “Reading. In bed.”

“Perfect,” Usnavi says, kissing Ruben’s temple. “Read to me?”

“Sure.”

 

_ _

 

“What’s this one called?” he asks once they’ve settled back into bed and Ruben has a worn paperback open, cracks along the spine.

“ _The Waste Land,_ by T.S. Eliot,” Ruben says. “Thelma gave it to me. Said it was something that ‘every poetry lover _must_ read, dear.’”

“And? Verdict?”

Ruben shrugs. “It’s kind of complicated, really obscure, but I think I’m liking it so far.”

Usnavi hums and waves a hand, “well, go on then.” Ruben’s laughter rumbles against his ear.

“Fine, fine. I’ll just start at the beginning again.” Pages crinkle. “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring up dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering earth in forgetful snow, feeding a little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee with a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, and went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, and drank coffee, and talked for an hour. _Bin gar keine Russian, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch._ And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s, my cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, and I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.”

Ruben’s voice is low, cadence almost perfect—only tripping a little on the German. Usnavi puts a hand on Ruben’s stomach, on the patch of warm skin bared by his sweater riding up, and rubs gently back and forth with his thumb.

“What are the roots that clutch,” Ruben continues, “what branches grow out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, you cannot say, or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images, where the sun beats, and the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, and the dry stone no sound of water. Only there is shadow under this red rock, (come in under the shadow of this red rock), and I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you. I will show you fear in a handful of dust...”

Usnavi closes his eyes, letting the words and the rhythm of Ruben’s voice wash over him. He’s drifting, only vaguely aware of Ruben starting to slow, and then a book is hitting him in the head.

“Sorry!” Ruben says as he jerks in surprise. “Shit, I was falling asleep.”

“It’s okay,” Usnavi says, more amused than anything, and puts the book on the nightstand. “Come down here?”

Ruben joins him back under the covers and Usnavi throws an arm around him. “Get some more sleep, yeah? I’ve got you.”

“I know you do,” Ruben mutters, mostly gone already, and Usnavi’s hit broadside by a sudden swell of emotion.

(Before he met Ruben and Vanessa, he didn’t think it was possible to love anyone this _much._ But his heart keeps surprising him, expanding and expanding and expanding.

And he can’t wrap his head around it, sometimes, how people can be so _cruel_ to their fellow humans. Can reduce a person and all of their intricacies down to nothing; down to a brain with answers or a hot pair of legs. How Jason can push and demand even when Ruben’s trembling and men can keep hollering at Vanessa even when they see the disgust on her face.

It makes his blood boil, more than anything else, but he knows that the only thing he can do to help is love them. Whisper in their ear as often as possible, “you’re more, you’re so _much more.”_

After he heard the whole of Ruben’s story, saw the expanse of his scars, he had nearly a week of sleepless nights, waking in a cold sweat to images of Ruben screaming and blood dripping to the floor like a sea of red. And his hands shook, just a little, every time he put them on Ruben’s skin—not because he was worried Ruben would break, but because the very idea of hurting him made Usnavi sick and half-way to terrified.

“It’s okay,” Ruben told him once, leaning into Usnavi’s fingers on his hips. “I’m okay.”

But in his head there was still the same clamor of thoughts from his early days with Vanessa: variations of “ _oh my god, you’re trusting me with this”_ and “ _don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up, whatever you do **don’t fuck it up** …” _

It got better—it _is_ better—but awe still blindsides him from time to time. They _trust him,_ both of them, with their bodies and their hearts and all the cracks in their armor, and it’s mind-blowing. He doesn’t have enough words for what it means to him.)

He runs gentle fingers through Ruben’s hair and settles down next to him. A few more hours of sleep won’t hurt.

 

_ _

 

By the time Vanessa makes it home, they’ve hauled themselves out of bed, put on sweatpants, and gotten started on dinner. When she walks through the door, Ruben sets down the knife he’d been using to cut vegetables and pulls her into a deep kiss. She’s in heels so he has to go up on his tiptoes to reach properly and the sight makes something hot twist in Usnavi’s stomach.

(Jesus, he’s so lucky.)

“I can’t believe you punched Jason,” Ruben says when he pulls back. “Thank you.”

Vanessa shrugs, aiming for casual and falling miles short. “I said I would. Someone needed to.”

Ruben kisses her again, hands on her waist to keep himself steady. “I love you. Like, a _lot.”_

“Ditto,” she says with a smirk and Usnavi snorts, going to join them.

“Welcome home.” He also has to rock upwards to reach her and when they part, Ruben is staring at them, slightly open-mouthed.

(Ha.)

After Vanessa’s changed and is unwinding at the kitchen table, she fixes Ruben with a serious look. “Are you doing okay? I told Usnavi to keep me updated but he’s an idiot and forgot.”

Usnavi winces. Shit. He _knew_ there was something else he was supposed to do. He read Vanessa’s text in a sleepy daze somewhere around two pm and told himself he would reply later.

“Sorry,” he says. “We were sleeping and it totally slipped my mind.”

Vanessa sighs and lets it go with a wave. “It’s fine. Are you okay, though?”

“Yeah,” Ruben says, adjusting the temperature on the oven. “I’m still a little on edge but surprisingly there’s only been one incident today and it wasn’t that bad. Just kind of spaced out and dropped a bowl.”

Vanessa looks at Usnavi for confirmation (because Ruben tends to downplay shit when he doesn’t want them to worry) and he nods. “We slept most of the day.”

She doesn’t bother hiding her relief, just gets up and wraps her arms around Ruben, burying her face in his neck. “I’m so proud of you.”

Ruben makes a soft noise, looking very overwhelmed again, and so Usnavi leans in and presses a kiss to his temple for good measure. “Me too.”

“Yes,” Ruben says, voice strangled and a little thick. “Great. I love you both, thank you, the vegetables are burning.”

Vanessa lets him go with an amused laugh and he hurries to the stove, head ducked to hide the flush on his cheeks.

Usnavi bites his lip, fighting another huge smile. It actually, wonder of wonders, hasn’t been a day. Not even close.

(And his heart is expanding and expanding and expanding.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more and then I'm done, I promise. :) 
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://www.wobblyspelling.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I lied, there will be a short epilogue after this, which should be up tomorrow. Thank you everyone who has read and commented and left kudos. Y'all rock. I love this tiny, enthusiastic fandom. 
> 
> Once again for [thisstableground](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground), thank you for making me fall in love with these three. Happy Birthday. :) 
> 
> WARNING: this chapter has a scene that deals briefly with past suicidal ideation.

“Where are we _going?”_ Ruben asks as Usnavi drags him along by the hand. It’s way too early, barely eight a.m., and they already spent nearly an hour on the train.

(Usnavi put gloves, a hat, a scarf, and a cup of coffee in his hands this morning with a bright grin.

“Are we going to the north pole?” he asked dubiously because even though New York was well into Fall, it wasn’t cold enough to require quite this many layers yet.

Usnavi just kissed him, hand cupped warm against the back of his neck, and said, “no spoilers. You’ll see.”)

They turn a corner and he frowns in surprise when he sees a ferry station at the end of the street. “A ferry? Are we getting on a ferry?”

“Relax,” Vanessa tells him, still nursing her own cup of coffee. “You’re so impatient.”

(“What’s your color?” she asked him when they woke up.

He thought about it, about the itch still running under his skin and creeping up his spine. He was still seeing ghosts out of the corner of his eye, but he knew that sensation would fade, given a few more days. And he wanted this surprise, wanted whatever they might have planned for him, so he lifted his chin, stubborn and determined.

“Green.”

He didn’t lie about this, not ever, and she accepted his answer with two years of built-up trust and a press of her lips to his. “Okay. Get dressed, then. We’re heading out soon.”)

Sure enough, they get in line for the ferry. Ruben consciously stops wracking his brain for where their final stop might be and tells himself to calm down, focus on Usnavi’s fingers laced with his.

He’s not in a car with Ian, barreling towards an unknown fate and wondering frantically if he’s ever going to see his family again.  He’s with two people he loves and trusts and there are good things waiting at the end of this.

“How long have you guys been planning this?” he asks once they’ve grabbed seats by the window.

“A few weeks,” Vanessa says at the same time Usnavi blurts, “three months.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes to the ceiling as Usnavi then clarifies, “I mean, this started as the ‘holy _shit_ two _years’_ thing and then we decided to tack on the ‘yay, three months with no nightmares’ later.”

Ruben blinks at them, wondering when exactly they’re going to stop blindsiding him like this. “Three months? Really?”

“Two _years,”_ is all Usnavi says in response, but Ruben gets it.

Holy shit is right.

(And he has his own surprises for them, tucked away in the bag Usnavi told him to pack. He was going to wait until dinner somewhere in two weeks, but they said this was definitely an anniversary thing when he asked and that he should bring the gifts.

He suspects that they’ve moved up the date to help him combat the shadow of Jason still looming over his head, but he isn’t going to call them out on it. He’d rather live in denial when it comes to stuff like this.)

Vanessa puts her feet in his lap and he rests his head against the cool glass of the window, watching the waves and the passing shore. They’re somewhere near Long Island, but beyond that he’s lost.

After about half an hour, the ferry docks and he’s even more lost than before.

“Okay, where exactly are we?” he asks as they disembark, looking around.

They’re on an island of some kind (and he tries very hard not to feel nervous about that; about the ocean he can see on every horizon line, just like in Montego Bay; tells himself to focus on the cold wind biting into his cheeks—different island, different ocean) and there isn’t much civilization in sight, just the small dock and endless trees.

“Fire Island,” Vanessa says, and that name sounds vaguely familiar.

Usnavi nervously adjusts his bag. “Yeah we thought about how you never got to sit on a beach because of Fuckface Two and sitting on a beach is always nice. And it’s dead here this time of year so it’ll be really quiet and we figured the cold would help. There’s a cool sunken forest apparently and a lighthouse and lots of trails and some nice restaurants, so we can spend the day exploring and then eat and take the evening ferry back home. I know it’s not much, but—”

“Hey, cállate _,_ ” Ruben says, firm. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Vanessa squeezes his hand and Usnavi beams. Ruben tells himself that the stinging sensation in his eyes is just from the wind.

He’s not going to start crying again. Nope.

 

_ _

 

Several hours later his face has gone numb from the wind and his legs are sore from all the walking they’ve done, but his heart is somewhere near in the clouds.

(The Sunken Forest was _awesome._ Even though he’s a chemist by trade, all science is fascinating to him and that definitely includes rare, centuries-old ecological habitats.

“ _Look_ at this,” he kept saying as they traversed it. “Isn’t this incredible?”

“It’s amazing,” Usnavi replied, matching his enthusiasm even though to him these were probably just weird looking trees.

Vanessa smiled at him, pleased. Like seeing him happy was all she cared about and just like that, his heart clenched again in his chest.)

They find a nearly empty stretch of beach and spread blankets out on the sand, huddling together for warmth. Vanessa’s scarf is pulled up over her nose and mouth and coupled with the hat on her head, the only visible thing is her eyes, while Usnavi has abandoned his traditional flat cap for a wool beanie that keeps slipping halfway down his face, but neither of them are complaining.

(They took a selfie at the lighthouse—the island and the sea spread out behind them—and it’s pretty much impossible to see their faces beneath all of their layers, but Ruben still wants to frame it because he can almost feel the happiness radiating from it.

A very small, very petty part of him wants to send it to Jason with a message along the lines of “fuck you, look how much better my life is now,” but mostly he just wants to never think about Jason or Ian again.)

“Thank you for this,” he says, probably for the fifth time today.

“We’ve been thoroughly thanked, you know,” Usnavi points out, teasing, and presses chapped lips to his cheek. “But you’re welcome.”

“Yeah, this beats the tropics any day, right?” Vanessa asks, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

“Definitely,” he agrees. He doesn’t care how frozen he is, the ocean is wild and beautiful and even though he hates the taste of salt on his tongue, Jamaica feels far away.

In another life.

A stray thought crosses his mind, an irony he hasn’t thought about before, and he laughs before he can stop himself. At Usnavi and Vanessa’s puzzled look, he says, “I hated Philly when I first moved there. We came during the winter and it was so _cold._ I’d never experienced anything like it. I mean, the first time it snowed I nearly had a heart attack. People kept telling me I’d get used to it eventually. My blood would thicken and my body would become more resilient, but I still hated it. Years later, winter was still my least favorite season.”

He curls and uncurls his gloved fingers. “And now it’s the total opposite. Weird how life works, doesn’t it? The things you don’t expect to change that do.”

(It still amazes him, sometimes, how _little_ it takes for everything to change irreversibly. The police estimated that Ian had him captive for a total of five hours. Five hours out of the roughly 277,590 that he’s been alive.

 _Five._ Five was all it took to shatter him.

Five hours and one knife and two hands and there he was: something once brilliant reduced to a fearful _mess_ barely able to function.

He hadn’t been able to wrap his head around it, at first. Because it took even more time to find all the places Ian had broken him. A touch to his neck, heat, the glint of a knife against kitchen lights, fingers closing over his wrist, blue eyes and brown hair in a crowd, static over a car radio—each one was a terrible discovery. Fractures deep inside of him that he had no idea how to mend.

His brain had always been his greatest weapon, ever since he was a too-small boy in San Juan. He wasn’t the strongest or the fastest or the most charming, but that didn’t matter because he was _smart._ He was always the smartest one in the room, no matter how big the room seemed to get. And Ian _knew_ that, understood that it made him dangerous, and so found a way to reach in and break that essential part of him, too.

Perhaps even more than his body.

It made him furious, in the immediate aftermath—or at least, the small part of him not consumed by fear was angry. Because he just. Couldn’t. Get. His. Brain. To. _Work._

He jumped at shadows; he ached with phantom pain; he panicked over _nothing,_ all the time; he tried to fall back on equations and formulas but he couldn’t organize his skittish thoughts onto paper—everything he wrote turned out incomprehensible gibberish and his mother once found him _weeping_ over a torn-up notebook because it was _gone,_ all that made him who he was, and he didn’t know how to get it _back._

She cupped his face and told him, soft and sad, “you just have to give it time, mijo. You’re strong and all these broken pieces of you will grow back. It just takes time.”

And he did get them back (or rather, he clawed and fought and _won_ them back), but she was right. It took time. It took _years,_ and he is coming to accept that there are pieces of him that will always be missing. Pieces that Ian ground into dust.

Five hours. Just five.)

“Yeah,” Vanessa says. “Never thought I’d move back to the barrio for you idiots.”

Usnavi kisses Ruben’s cheek again. “Never thought I’d be dating a guy.”

“Who looks just like you,” Vanessa teases and Usnavi reaches around Ruben to smack her leg. Vanessa responds by pulling his hat off, eliciting an indignant squawk from him.

Ruben laughs at their antics. “Well, I never thought _any_ of this would happen. New York, teaching, this beach, _you._ ”

Vanessa flicks him on the forehead. “Fine, fine, you win.”

He grins at her, feeling something close to giddy. “What do I win, exactly?”

Her answering smile is sly and sends a nice, hot shiver down his spine. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Dinner first, _then_ mind-blowing anniversary sex.” Usnavi chimes in. “We have standards.”

Ruben laughs again, bright and loud. Overhead, gulls screech, riding the wind, and he can barely even taste the salt anymore.

 

_ _

 

Dinner is at a small, rustic seafood restaurant. They all stuff their faces with more lobster, crab, and shrimp than is probably healthy and Usnavi and Vanessa insist on paying the bill.

“So,” Ruben says as they all sit in various stages of a food coma, “other gifts now?”

Usnavi and Vanessa trade a glance and nod.

“You and me first,” Usnavi says.

“Okay,” Ruben agrees easily and fishes around in his bag for the right envelope.

He’s nervous, that these will be too much. Money is still a sensitive issue, on occasion. He still hasn’t told them that was he was making close to two hundred thousand dollars a year at IMH or that he saved most of that money—almost half a million amassed over six years—and it’s sitting in a bank account gathering interest.

(Hostos Community College couldn’t believe it when he applied for an adjunct teaching position with them. He had two Skype interviews and one face to face interview, all to ask him if he was absolutely sure this was what he wanted.

“You realize,” they said in one, “that we can’t offer you more than twenty-five thousand a year.”

Yes, he understood that.

“Which is almost _seven times_ less than what you were making before?” they pressed.

 _Yes,_ he insisted. He didn’t care about money.

They told him he was overqualified by a ridiculous amount; that he should be somewhere like MIT or NYU or Colombia; that there were numerous research labs in the city that would literally trip over themselves to have someone with his credentials on staff.

He assured them, over and over, that this was what he wanted. He told them just enough about what had happened to make them understand he had no desire to set foot in a lab anytime soon. (He _didn’t_ tell them that he still worried his brain was too broken to teach at a prestigious university.)

He just wanted somewhere he could slow down—a few classes a week, comparatively low pressure—and continue putting himself back together.

Eventually, they agreed, looking like they’d just won some kind of lottery, and asked if he could start as soon as possible.

For him, drowning in his mother’s guilt and his sisters’ worry and his own phantoms, it was an easy answer: _yes._ )

But they both thought the other person’s present was a great idea and agreed to pitch in, so he’s going to trust them on this. He sets the envelope in front of Vanessa with a deep breath. “Please, before you open this, it’s just an offer. If you’re not interested, we’ll go out and buy you jewelry or something.”

“Yeah,” Usnavi agrees, squeezing her hand. “We just thought you’d appreciate this more.”

Vanessa arches an eyebrow at them and tears open the envelope, nearly ripping it straight down the middle.

“Classes?” she says as she stares at the slip of paper inside.

“The first semester you’d need to get your Associate’s Degree,” Ruben explains. “Fully covered.”

“We didn’t wanna just assume what you’d get it _in,_ so any classes you wanna register for, we’ll handle.”

Vanessa puts a hand over her mouth, looking very much like she’s wishing her chair came with a spinning function so she could have a moment to collect herself.  Her eyes are wet. “I can’t accept this.”

“Yeah, you can,” Usnavi insists.

“You really, really can,” Ruben says.

He wants to give her this so badly, because she deserves the goddamn _world_ and this is a first step to her conquering it.

“You’d be amazing,” Usnavi continues when Vanessa shakes her head, paper crumpling in her hand. “You’d be incredible at it, Vanessa.”

“The school won’t know what hit them.”

Vanessa laughs, strangled, and then attempts to lean across the table and hug them both at the same time.

“You little shits,” she says with a sniff. “I hate you.”

“Aww, we love you, too,” Usnavi says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Vanessa shakes her head again, wiping frantically at her eyes. With her freed hand, she waves at Ruben. “Okay, our turn. I need revenge.”

“That sounds ominous,” Usnavi says as Ruben takes another deep breath and pulls the second envelope out of his bag, handing it over.

Usnavi takes it gingerly. “It’s not gonna explode or anything, is it?”

“Just open it,” Ruben says, trying not to fidget while Vanessa rolls her eyes.

Usnavi obeys, with more care than Vanessa, and then blinks, shocked and slow.

“These are plane tickets,” he says in a very small voice.

“Yes,” Ruben confirms.

“To the DR.”

“Yes.”

Usnavi blinks again. Opens his mouth, but no words come out.

“Oh my god,” Vanessa whispers, tilting closer to Ruben. “We actually did it, Ruben. He’s speechless.”

“One of us should be filming this, right?” Ruben murmurs back, through the nervous lump in his throat.

“Probably,” Vanessa agrees, but neither of them reach for their phone—too caught up in the emotions flickering rapidly across Usnavi’s face: wonder, disbelief, joy, disbelief, shock, disbelief.

“You bought me plane tickets to the DR,” he finally says.

“Technically, they’re for all of us,” Ruben says. “But yes.”

“Five-day trip,” Vanessa says, sounding very smug. “Playa Rincón.”

“Oh my god,” Usnavi whispers and looks up at them, expression still awash with disbelief, though his eyes are starting to fill. “I can’t believe this.”

“Happy Anniversary,” Ruben says and Usnavi lets out a sound caught between a laugh and a sob.

“Oh my god,” he repeats, running reverent fingers over the tickets. “You …” he laughs again. “This is … and you were worried about _me_ one upping you? _Dios mío_.”

He runs his sleeve across his eyes, smearing tears on his cheeks, and Ruben’s fingers itch for a camera to capture the awe on his face and keep it forever. Pull it out on the bad days that still persist and remind himself: _look, look at how much he loves you._

“I can’t believe you did this. How long were you planning this?”

Vanessa shrugs and glances at Ruben. “Six months?”

“Something like that,” Ruben agrees. “It was her idea.”

“I wanted to sit on a beach,” Vanessa says, dry, but her gaze is heavy with affection.

“This is _amazing_ ,” Usnavi says. “This is so—” He stops abruptly, switching gears, “Wait, when are we going?”

“This summer,” Ruben says, dread creeping up his spine. “Why?”

Usnavi reaches out and takes his hand, dipping his fingers under the sleeve of his coat to touch the scarred skin of his wrist. “But what about you?”

(Vanessa asked him the same thing, when they were planning the trip.

“Are you sure you’d be okay?”

And _no_ is the honest answer. Spending five days in tropical heat, surrounded by virulent green and ocean, would test the strength of the stitches holding him together, but he doesn’t care.

He wants to do this.

So he’d taken Vanessa’s hand and said, quiet, “I don’t know, but you need to let me try.”

“Okay,” Vanessa agreed, trusting him to an extent that still amazes him, sometimes.)

He looks at Usnavi, taking in his dark, worried eyes, the furrow to his brow, and is struck by the realization that if he said ‘no, I won’t be okay,’ Usnavi would drop it and never think about it again. Would be happy with whatever else Vanessa and Ruben decide to give him instead.

 _Look,_ a giddy, astonished voice whispers, _look how much he loves you._

“I’ll be okay,” he tells Usnavi. “I’ll have both of you and we’ll avoid any empty buildings and it’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure—”

“Usnavi,” he interjects with a smile, “just take the damn gift.”

Usnavi shakes his head, but leans back in his seat with a smile and tear-blurred eyes.

“I think my heart is gonna explode,” he murmurs, putting a hand over his chest.

“You’re so dramatic,” Vanessa teases and kisses him. Wipes away the wetness on his cheek with her thumb. “Happy Anniversary.”

Ruben’s heart is overflowing. Floodwater everywhere.

“Come here,” Usnavi says, pulling him around the table so he can seal their mouths together.

Ruben closes his eyes and sinks into it—Usnavi’s hands on his face and Vanessa’s fingers in his hair like an exorcism for all his lingering ghosts.

 

_ _

 

(Most of Jamaica is lost to a haze of pain and terror and blood, but one moment in particular stands out—preserved in amber.

It haunts his dreams for weeks and months after:

His upper body is already a ruined mess and Ian puts the knife to his wrist, right above the pulse.

“Go on,” he says with a smile as sharp as the blade pressing against Ruben’s fragile skin, “Beg me, Rubes.”

And Ruben sucks in a wet, clogged breath and _does._ Begs in a fractured whisper, “p-please, please k-k-kill me, please just let me die.”

Ian laughs and cuts a line up Ruben’s arm, not nearly deep enough. “Maybe later. If you’re good.”

Ruben squeezes his eyes shut, silent tears leaking from the corners to pool on the table beneath him, as Ian moves the knife to his hip and the nightmare continues.

 

_Or:_

“P-please, please k-k-kill me, please just let me die.”

Ian laughs. “Well, since you asked so nicely…”

And the blade sinks in, all the way to the bone, opening up a river of red.

And he wakes up screaming and clawing at his wrists. Trying to put pressure on invisible cuts and half-convinced his sheets are drenched with his own blood.

The first time it happens with Usnavi and Vanessa around, he scares them half to death.

“He didn’t actually do it,” he tells them after he’s calmed down enough to explain, running still-shaking fingers over the thin scar that runs from wrist to inner elbow. “But my brain doesn’t seem to care about that.” And then, tumbling out against his will, “I used to feel relieved, when the knife went in. It hurt. Waking up. I didn’t want to.”

“Fuck,” Usnavi says, shattered.

“But you want to now, right?” Vanessa asks with something close to desperation.

“Yes,” he assures them. “I always want to wake up now.”

After he sees Jason again, he fully expects to have that dream: the begging, the knife, the blood. He curls up on the second night, blanketed between Usnavi and Vanessa and waits for it to hit him—pillow between his teeth in case he starts screaming.

But. Nothing.

There is the table, the heat, salt from the nearby ocean, but instead of Ian and the knife there is Usnavi curling gentle fingers around his wrists, helping him up; and there is Vanessa draping a blanket over his trembling shoulders; and there is a whisper in the air, both of their voices mingling together in a familiar cadence, “we’ve got you. You’re safe.”

And he wakes up with his cheeks wet from happy, overwhelmed tears, and the knowledge that he’s finally won a battle he’s been fighting for years.

And this victory feels permanent.)

 

_ _

 

They curl up together on the ferry home—Vanessa’s head in his lap, Usnavi’s head on his shoulder—and watch the passing lights on the shore.

“Best anniversary ever,” Usnavi mumbles, sleepy and content.

“I’m still taking you both out to dinner in two weeks,” Ruben replies. “No arguments.”

“’M not gonna turn down free food,” Vanessa says. “Are you kidding?”

“Yeah,” Usnavi agrees, muffled by the fabric of Ruben’s coat. “We’re not crazy, querido _._ ”

Ruben laughs softly. “Good. It’s a date.”

“Perfect,” Vanessa says. “Looking forward to it.”

“Shhh,” Usnavi mutters, touching her hair. “Less talking, more napping.”

Ruben huffs another quiet laugh and rests his cheek against the warm wool of Usnavi’s hat. “Good plan.”

For once, the rush of the waves is soothing, and he isn’t thinking about Jason or Ian at all.

(And maybe, just maybe, he’ll pack a few t-shirts when they go to Playa Rincón this summer.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, _now_ I'm done. Please enjoy my entirely self-indulgent epilogue (like this whole story wasn't insanely self-indulgent, ha.). I just have so many Feelings for Amazing Science Prodigy Ruben that I couldn't resist. ;)

**Four Years Later**

 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very pleased to be the one to introduce tonight’s award recipient. Most of you will know his name, and not just because it’s printed on your programs. In the past three years, his work has been featured in numerous national and international scientific journals and he was recently named one of Times Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020. His drug, nicknamed Blackout, changed the pharmacological field forever. A short-term, highly-effective treatment for insomnia with absolutely no side effects.

“He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a single mother, moving to America at eleven years of age. He finished high school two years later at thirteen and went on to get a degree in biochemistry from Columbia University, graduating summa cum laude at the age of sixteen. From there, he received a Masters and a PhD from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, finishing both programs in four years and also graduating top of his class. Two years later, he was named the head of Independence Memorial Hospital’s Pharmacology Research Lab—a position he would hold for the next six years.

“Now, at just thirty-four years of age, he is a Head Researcher at the prestigious Luminosa Laboratories in New York City, and there is making groundbreaking strides in the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He also wanted me to let you know that if you have any questions or would like to discuss his work, he can be found twice a week teaching at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, where he has been an adjunct professor for the past six years.

“As far as awards go, he has amassed quite the collection in the last year. He has already been a recipient of the Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, the Chemical Pioneer Award, and, last but not least, the National Medal of Science. We here at the American Chemical Society are proud to bestow on him our highest honor tonight.

“Please welcome the 2020 recipient of the Priestly Medal, Dr. Ruben Marcado.”

(Seated in the crowd, in the most expensive dress she’s ever worn, Vanessa grips Usnavi’s hand and squeezes hard enough to bruise. He barely notices—eyes fixed on the stage, the figure now stepping up to the podium, and heart somewhere near the back of his throat.

“He looks so good,” Vanessa whispers and yes, he does.

That tux is _whoa._ He’s _definitely_ keeping that on when they move celebrations to a bedroom tonight.

But right now, most of Usnavi’s attention is on the tremors running through Ruben’s hands and his nervous smile. He knows telepathy isn’t a thing, but he still finds himself thinking as hard as he can at Ruben: _you’ve got this, you’ve got this, you’ve got this_ just in case.

Ruben has his speech written out on notecards, stupidly neat. He practiced it for two weeks, pacing around their apartment, and then again at the hotel. Stuttering and stopping and banging his legs against various pieces of furniture until the words no longer tripped coming out of his mouth.

He’s gonna be brilliant tonight and Usnavi is gonna cry everywhere.

He knows it.)

“Thank you so much. I would like to apologize in advance if I mess this up. I’m very nervous. And not that great in front of big crowds. They told me a speech was mandatory, though, and that I’d only be able to see the first few tables, so here I am.

“I won’t get into my accomplishments—that isn’t really what I want to talk to you about. You heard the laundry list and I admit it’s impressive, but my mother is the hero of my story, not me. She raised me, alone, pretty much in poverty in San Juan. She worked four jobs and scraped together tuition for every gifted program and college class she could shove me into. And when that wasn’t enough, she moved to America—a country she’d never been to that spoke a language she didn’t know a word of—so that I could continue my education. I’m so honored to be her son. I will never be able to thank her enough for all that she’s done for me.

“To the two other VIPs in my life—you know who you are—thank you for loving me when I was two steps away from shattered. For standing by me with patience and occasionally a needle and thread. I love you so much.

“Like your prestigious chair said, I have spent the past three years dedicated to creating more effective treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and I’m going to admit to you tonight that my motivations are a little bit selfish. You see, _I_ have PTSD. I was diagnosed seven years ago now and while I am much, _much_ better than I was, I still experience symptoms. There are days when I can’t touch the people that I love. I can’t stand in a hot room for more than a few minutes. I can’t bear the taste of salt. I see ghosts in the corners of rooms, on the subway, in the street.

“But I’m not special. That’s the whole point I want to make to you tonight: I’m not special. An estimated 7.8 percent of Americans will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. About 3.6 percent of U.S. adults aged 18 to 54 (that’s _5.2 million_ people) have PTSD during the course of a given year. 5.2 _million._ Not to overstate anything here, but that’s _a lot.”_

“And one of the worst things about PTSD, I’ve discovered, is that it turns you into a metaphorical minefield. You don’t know where all the bombs are planted or the fault lines are. You think that whatever you suffered is over. You can move on. But then: fireworks on the Fourth of July, a touch to your neck, a loud noise in the night, a stranger’s cologne at a party, a face in the crowd and _boom._ Explosions. Earthquakes. And you realize that you’re still at war. You’re just fighting a more difficult one now because the enemy is your own head. The enemy is a ghost.

“How do you exorcise a ghost? Alcohol? Pills? Therapy? Avoidance? There are no easy answers, no short-term solutions. PTSD is a long and difficult road and usually takes a tailored combination of medication and psychiatric help to treat. What myself and my team at Luminosa are currently working on is finding ways to make _some_ of this process easier. Calm one battle so that you can fight another instead. Blackout was the first step, designed to help with insomnia and night terrors in the short-term, without any of the terrible side effects that can come with sleep medication. And we pushed that first because I couldn’t sleep for three years. I know how awful it is. How difficult it makes everything else. Now, we’re looking into longer-term treatments. Medication that will help with other symptoms such as paranoia, depression, and anxiety—with the goal of removing as many harmful side effects as we can along the way.

“Receiving this award, along with all the others, has been an incredible honor because it means that our work has been seen as important. But we have so much left to do. That is why I would also like to take a moment of my time up here to encourage you to get involved beyond this ceremony, whether through donations to our laboratory or by utilizing some of the towering intellect I know is in this room. And if you would like to learn more about the effects of PTSD, as well hear some personal testimonies of those who suffer it, I also strongly encourage you to check out our website. We have partnered this past year with the PTSD Foundation of America, who is also doing incredible work. My own story is up there, if you’re curious.

“5.2 million Americans in a single year alone. We cannot ignore that number, ladies and gentlemen. My team and I are just getting started. Thank you so much for your recognition and appreciation of our work so far, including this award. It’s an amazing honor. Good night.”

(His voice shakes, sometimes, but he doesn’t slip up once, and he gets a goddamn standing ovation at the end of it.  Vanessa whistles with her fingers and Usnavi can barely see anything through the blur of his tears, but there is Ruben up on a stage in the spotlights, conquering the world, and it’s almost too much for his heart to handle.

He hopes that somewhere Jason fucking Cole is watching this. He hopes that Jason fucking Cole sees Ruben walk up on stage at the _White House_ (dear god) in a few months and accept a medal from the _President of the United States_ (dear GOD) as one of only two recipients in the field of chemistry. He wants to _find_ Jason fucking Cole and _make_ him watch. Tell him: _this is what you tried to suppress; this is what you almost took away from everyone. Live with that guilt for the rest of your miserable life._

Four years ago, Ruben asked if he was ruined with shaking shoulders and tear-soaked eyes and now … well.

Just _look_ at him.

Vanessa leans into him, her own eyes bright, and murmurs, “I think my heart is gonna explode.”

Yeah. That sounds about right.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (And in my headcanons, a year later Ruben wins the damn Nobel Prize for Chemistry, becoming one of only eight people in history to win it under the age of forty, one of only six Latinos to win it for science, and therefore, the first Latino under forty to ever win it for science. 
> 
> The event is amazing. Usnavi gets mistaken for Ruben about fifty times and eventually just goes along with it until they start talking complicated science at him and his eyes glaze over. He and Vanessa drink way too much champagne and try not to cry everywhere or freak out about how _expensive_ everything is. Like, seriously, this one fork probably costs more than he'll make at the bodega in a month, but " _no_ , Vanessa, we are not stealing any of it." 
> 
> Ruben doesn't stop grinning and looking around in amazed disbelief the whole evening. Pride is not the word Vanessa and Usnavi are looking for.) 
> 
> The end.


End file.
